Printing devices, such as printers, copy machines, and multi-function peripherals (MFPs) such as the Ricoh Aficio Color 6513 system, continue to become more sophisticated. Despite efforts to make printing devices easy to operate, many users of unfamiliar printing devices have, in the past, become perplexed when attempting to use those printing devices. To assist users, a maker of a printing device usually provides a paper copy of a user manual that contains instructions for operating a printing device. As long as a user manual remains in a known location close to the printing device, users can find help in the manual's pages.
Unfortunately, user manuals are often lost or misplaced. Frequently, user manuals are kept in a different location than the printing device for which they contain operating instructions. Even if a user knows where to find a user manual for the printing device that he is trying to operate, the user may be burdened with the task of traveling some distance to where the user manual is kept, and then traveling back to the printing device once he has read the user manual. This wastes the user's time.
Even easily operated printing devices can experience problems that require user intervention. The paper that feeds through a printing device may jam, requiring a user to remove one or more pages that are stuck someplace inside of the printing device. The printing device may run low on toner, requiring a user to supply additional toner to the printing device. The printing device may use all of the paper in its paper tray, requiring a user to insert more paper into the appropriate tray.
Some of the more sophisticated printing devices include a display that shows solution information for solving problems that the printing device may experience. For example, a printing device may display, on a liquid crystal display (LCD) panel located on the surface of the printing device, recommended actions for removing paper that is stuck within the printing device. In some instances, the recommend actions depict components of the printing device that the user must manipulate in order to remedy the problem. For example, a printing device may display, on an LCD panel, an image of the printing device with a particular door or cover opened, thus showing the user that he must open that particular door or cover to access the area of the printing device in which the problem has occurred. Such solution information is usually stored in firmware of the printing device.
While solutions presented on a printing device's display and operating instructions printed in a manual may assist a user, such solutions and instructions are sometimes difficult to understand. Instructions may be unclear, imprecise, incomplete, outdated, or even erroneous. When a user cannot understand help or solution information, the user may become frustrated with the printing device and the organization that made the printing device. Unfortunately, such organizations often remain oblivious to the plight of the user who cannot operate a printing device due to insufficient guidance. A maker of a printing device is unlikely to remedy confusion of which the maker is unaware.
Even when a printing device maker is aware of user confusion, distributing new printed manuals and/or dispatching service personnel to update solution information stored in firmware can be prohibitively expensive. Furthermore, users typically dislike waiting for new manuals or service personnel to arrive while printing devices sit idle.
Based on the need to provide better guidance to confused and frustrated users of printing devices, a method and system for providing updated help and solution information at a printing device is highly desirable.